New funding and appointments

The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies (ATS) announced its funding decisions on the 28th of November and they entailed great news for the CEACG-group.

The group’s founder, professor emeritus Pekka Sulkunen, was granted continuous support for the endeavour of gathering gambling police knowledge and evidence for the book project “Gambling Policy and Science”. The book, which is a co-production by an international group of scholars, will be published by the Oxford University Press in 2017.

Doctoral student Veera Kankainen received three years additional funding for her study on the ways in which revenues from the Finnish gambling policy system uphold parts of civil society.

Furthermore, a new international research project ”Regulation of online alcohol advertising: Is it possible and is it relevant from a public health perspective?” (PI: Hellman) was granted funding. The project will start in January 2017. This is an international research-oriented sister project to the research and development project “Affecting adolescents’ images of alcohol use: An evaluation of the online alcohol marketing strategies and the impact of the new Finnish Alcohol Act”, which received Academy funding within the so called Kärkihanke-venture this autumn (PI: Katainen).

Appointments and new researchers

The positive funding decisions this autumn entail some additions in the staff of the CEACG. Mikaela Lindeman, who has previously been part of the alcohol and drug research group at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) will be appointed researcher in the new alcohol advertising project (funded by the ATS) in the year 2017. Lindeman has long experience from international projects in the field of alcohol policy: She has been part of two large scale European FP7 projects: the AMPHORA (2007-2011) and in the ALICE RAP (2011-2016).

Two research assistants have been recruited for the CEACG-group in November-December 2016. Within the Academy-funded online alcohol marketing project, Emmi Kauppila will be gathering data. Tuulia Lerkkanen serves as part of a study that investigates the public image of gambling and of the stakeholders in Finnish gambling policies. In 2017 Lerkkanen will be executing a diachronic analysis of media portrayals from the 1990s up until today.

In November 2016 CEACG:s group leader Matilda Hellman has been appointed editor in chief for the journal Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (NAD) starting 2017, and she has also been appointed guest researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

The CEACG will present some ongoing endeavours at a seminar in December: For more information, please, see program and registration.